- Did your scores just drop? Like, ALOT? Don't worry, it happens to all of us. There are always some bastards running around voting 0 on everything, just like You are a bastard voting 5 on your own stuff every single day.

- The audioportal have the same voting system the flashportal have. Main difference is that there are alot more users voting (fairly) on flashes. That is why the scores gets evened out in there, and not in the AP. Well, not that much, anyways.

- If you made a thread about you being struck from massive downvoting or whatever, it's very much possible somone was kind enough to link you to this thread.
See, in this forum, we have gotten sick and tired of seeing threads about "zero-bombing". This is a forum where you are supposed to discuss the creation of music, not the flaws of the current system.
The admins are well aware of what they have created, so just leave it be.

- You'll become a much happier person when you stop caring about the scores. There are many other ways of exposure on this site. If you're good, soon enough you will get discovered.

- Review other users audio usually, alot of users return the favour. Review fairly new songs usually gives a better responce. And when you make a review, try to make it as constructive as possible, you'll get alot better responce if you do. Also, you'll learn more yourself if you really listen to the song you review.

Feel free to discuss both zero-voting and how to get exposure in this thread.

Heed this warning though:- If you whine about 0-voting in this thread, you will be rewarded with post deletion and possibly a ban from the BBS.
Basicly, there is not much to say about 0-voters that I haven't mentioned in this thread. But in case somone do have something smart to come with, you can post it in here.

- The audioportal have the same voting system the flashportal have. Main difference is that there are alot more users voting (fairly) on flashes. That is why the scores gets evened out in there, and not in the AP. Well, not that much, anyways.

Except they have a blam system.

- If you made a thread about you being struck from massive downvoting or whatever, it's very much possible somone was kind enough to link you to this thread.
See, in this forum, we have gotten sick and tired of seeing threads about "zero-bombing". This is a forum where you are supposed to discuss the creation of music, not the flaws of the current system.
The admins are well aware of what they have created, so just leave it be.

Agreed....but was it completely necessary to close reaper-of-ratings topic? There was some intelligent, NEW discussion going on in there. But whatevs.

Exposure
- Here are some way of getting exposure (links):
Underdog list

- Review other users audio usually, alot of users return the favour. Review fairly new songs usually gives a better responce. And when you make a review, try to make it as constructive as possible, you'll get alot better responce if you do. Also, you'll learn more yourself if you really listen to the song you review.

Yeah, that's bullshit. Most people don't have the courtesy to respond anymore. I made an alternate account and am about up to 100 reviews (some deleted of course) given and, with only 5 people taken the time to respond. Yes, I kept track. I honestly don't care, as all I want is a review response from the author, thats enough of a reward for me. But what you're saying is generally wrong.

Neverthless, handing out reviews is probably the best way. If you want to increase the likelihood of someone returning a review, then politely ask them to check out your music at the bottom of your critique- granted you leave a thorough and helpful review.

I'll add in another link you can use to gain more exposure;Review Request Club
If you follow their rules, and make a request for your music, then you'll usually get at least half a dozen reviews from the club members, and more often than not, if your track needs criticism, they're quite good at giving constructive feedback.
Just remember, getting them to review your music is a privelige, not a right, so show some respect.
This also applies to everything, when getting your music exposed, arrogance won't get you anywhere.

READ: "A Fear of Great Heights" and other forthcoming adventures right HERE
Signature Picture by: Spartan204

i got an idea too . . . why not just report abuse about it to some admins . . . apparently two have revealed themselves as 0-terrorists, but one has become really personal about it. How would I go about doing that?

- The audioportal have the same voting system the flashportal have. Main difference is that there are alot more users voting (fairly) on flashes. That is why the scores gets evened out in there, and not in the AP. Well, not that much, anyways.

Except they have a blam system.

And some other slgith differences, like voting power etc. Still, the basics are the same. Like I pointed out, the main dif. is the amount of users voting.

was it completely necessary to close reaper-of-ratings topic? There was some intelligent, NEW discussion going on in there. But whatevs.

It wasn't really a new way of turning the whole 0-voting concept, throughout the endless 0-threads all of what was menioned have been pointed out one time or another.
It wasn't the crappiest of threads, definitley not, but it's still a thread about the system itself, and the heart of it is obviously about 0-voting. There is no need for it, especially if everyone (utopi) could vote fairly. imo it's just another thread being bumped up stealing the spotolight for legitimate and more deserving threads.
I intentionally am attempting to kill the whole 0-voting discussion, because it leads nowhere, like i mentioned the admins are most likley aware of things and what really annoys me, is (like previously menitoned) the fact that the threads steal spotlight from other threads.

Exposure
- Here are some way of getting exposure (links):
Underdog list

Last post was made one month ago...that thread is dead.

Then maybe somone would like to re-animate it? It's a good thread, and a good concept.

Pffft, speak for yourself! I've found shitload of awesome music in there that I never would have found othervice, and I still check the thread regularly.

Newgrounds musician front page list

Of course, but audio users don't have much control over this.

You can always suggest well deserving songs in the thread, as long as it's not your own.

- Another obvious way is to get your audio used in flashes.

same as above

You can hook up with the flash-authors who comes in here, create threads about how they need an audio artist to work with. it's not all out of your control.

- Review other users audio usually, alot of users return the favour. Review fairly new songs usually gives a better responce. And when you make a review, try to make it as constructive as possible, you'll get alot better responce if you do. Also, you'll learn more yourself if you really listen to the song you review.

Yeah, that's bullshit. Most people don't have the courtesy to respond anymore. I made an alternate account and am about up to 100 reviews (some deleted of course) given and, with only 5 people taken the time to respond. Yes, I kept track. I honestly don't care, as all I want is a review response from the author, thats enough of a reward for me. But what you're saying is generally wrong.

I personally haven't done alot of reviewing since quite some time back. It's possible things have changed, but in many cases the name of the one who review, and his or hers (lol px9) reputation is the key. With the possibility to weigh in on reviews if they're useless/usefull, I think alot of users probably just hit the button instead of responding. I have no hard proof, but that's what I personally do, and I'd guess people are generally like me - lazy.

At 6/10/08 08:51 PM, PaulStetich wrote:
i got an idea too . . . why not just report abuse about it to some admins . . . apparently two have revealed themselves as 0-terrorists, but one has become really personal about it. How would I go about doing that?

seeing as the audio portal have gotten struck pretty hard, i notified liljim about it just before. i didn't mention any names, so if you want you could probably rat them out in a PM.

But like menioned in the first post, the AP is more or less like the FP, i don't think the admins will do much about it, since the FP experience the same alot of times.
but you never know, liljim is good at surprising the fanbase... :)

I've read, time and again, the same suggestions about how to improve the voting in the audio portal, or how to "improve things" - none of which seem to be particularly well thought out, whether or not the person who's suggesting them has actually studied the data that's already available to them publicly.

Let's go through a few previous suggestions:

1. Give the audio portal more exposure.

Ok, we tried that - at one point, the audio entries didn't have any placement on the front page of the site. In fact, I'm not even sure that that happened up until the redesign launch, on July 17, 2007.

Even the entries on the front page of the site, audio-wise, don't do so well - the front page of the site gets around a million impressions a day.
I'll give you an example of my own stuff, here - my audio submissions got uploaded in 2005. I was surprised to see that one of my tracks was on the front page and have checked out the stats for it this past couple of days... and the listens have only incremented by around a thousand or so. In two days. Either that's because my stuff is shit, or it's because I have a poor icon for my disk on the front page, but I refuse to believe it's because there aren't enough people casting their eyes over it when on the front page of the site. Check this out:

That has more comments (37, at time of writing, than my track, which is above it in the front page, with an icon, etc, and there's 13 reviews there).

Here are the stats for the track of mine that's on the front page at the time of writing this:

184 votes
2,995 listens
244 downloads
13 reviews

and that brings me to point:

2. Base scores from reviews.

No. Reviews take up peoples' time - and if they're indecent, it takes more time to get them to the moderators' attention than a countered vote would take in the audio portal from someone who likes your work, as opposed to someone who doesn't. It's rudimentary mathematics.... I'd rather have my score based off of 184 people, than from 13 reviews.

Too tired to write much more, but I will say this:

1. We've not given up on audio artists. BUT PLEASE stop repeating the same suggestions.

2. The best chance you have of getting publicity on Newgrounds is to get a decent flash artist to use your audio. And of course, we will endeavour to help you all make that happen.

At 6/10/08 08:47 PM, WritersBlock wrote:
I'll add in another link you can use to gain more exposure;
Review Request Club
If you follow their rules, and make a request for your music, then you'll usually get at least half a dozen reviews from the club members, and more often than not,

aye...glad you pointed that out WB, I forgot to mention them. A great crew really that take the time to make NG a better place....

BUT....I'm going to be an asshole. And I apologize for being an asshole. Foremost I (as everyone should) appreciate anybody that actually takes their time out of their busy schedule to review- and these reviews are more than just one liners (most of them). Like you said, recieving reviews is a priveledge not a right and the reviewers deserve respect and a response. Musician, non musician your opinion is valid, but that doesnt necessarily make you as qualified. However, their criticism...is generally not as helpful as others....their forte seems to be flash, and most of the crew members there arent actually musicians themselves. The most common criticism is "it could loop better" when the track actually loops perfectly, has a leading tone note back into the tonic (you music theory guys know what I'm talking about) at the start to make the track seamleslly flow composition wise- the problem possibly lies within a lagging flash player, or the extra second/half second .mp3 files naturally tag on. Usually they don't like shorter tracks, and tell you to make them longer without giving proper reasoning, even when loops and short tracks work great for flashes, and serve there purpose. A lot of times certain members stretch to find fault. Nothing wrong with that...might annoy some people. To sum it up, a lot of the advice given by the RRC is just, too vague. I just had to spill my beef whether it needed to be said or not, I mean no disrespect at all- but if you're a mediocre-advanced musician looking for good, specific criticism to help you improve, its usually not the best place. If you're looking for any people to give you reviews or just simply check out your work, then RRC is a great place to advertise.

I dont think Rucklo included this in his places to advertise music...but I think Nav started a topic a while back for WIPs. It was rolling strong from what I can remember, but it died out. I'll try to find it and bump it.

At 6/10/08 08:00 PM, Rucklo wrote:

- The audioportal have the same voting system the flashportal have. Main difference is that there are alot more users voting (fairly) on flashes. That is why the scores gets evened out in there, and not in the AP. Well, not that much, anyways.

Now that you mention it, why the hell does voting power on flashes carry over to voting power on audio, if we can't vote on audio and get more E.P. from it? It doesnt make too much sense to me, either enable that users can increase their voting power by voting on audio, or set off everyones voting power as equal, like before the redesign.

And I don't see any problem with letting our reviews have some influence on our voting power percentage. If we leave a review, and back up WHY we voted what we did, wouldnt that give us more credibility as voters? Plus it might encourage more people to review- a lot more short reviews I'd expect, you can take that as a bad thing or good thing. But I do believe it would aid in helping the zero voting problem.

I intentionally am attempting to kill the whole 0-voting discussion, because it leads nowhere, like i mentioned the admins are most likley aware of things and what really annoys me, is (like previously menitoned) the fact that the threads steal spotlight from other threads.

Eej, I gotcha.

Then maybe somone would like to re-animate it? It's a good thread, and a good concept.

Sure, I'll bump it. It is indeed a good concept, but negative nancy says it will just die again. I'll try to rack up names of some artists who havent been mentioned yet and post them in there. Oh, and I nominate fatkidwithajetpack.

Pffft, speak for yourself! I've found shitload of awesome music in there that I never would have found othervice, and I still check the thread regularly.

Yeah me too....and people like you are far and few between...but what I'm talking about here is REVIEWS. You know, the helpful words. I once checked the topic, looked at the last 50 submissions advertised in there, and ONE, only two percent of the advertisers was kind enough to review the following submission. wtf is up with that. I can guarantee you right now the thread is following a similar pattern. So in the instance of review recieved ratios, that thread is almost useless.

I suggested a while back to start a new advertisement thread but you said there was no need. Put out your music, review the two people above (or maybe make it one if thats too much), and this time strictly enforce, possibly delete, maybe ban them from the thread, or simply tell a user to follow the rules if they decide to be selfish about, advertise their own stuff expecting to recieve a review, yet not giving out any reviews of their own. ( There's what, 15 audio moderators? and it wouldnt need to be just a mod's job to try and enforce the rules, any user could do it) If they dont want to review other people, they can simply then use the other, original, cluttered thread. Now I understand how some of the reprimandation options wouldn't be possible under the current BBS system, but its still worth a shot.

Now I may be missing a key point in action here, but I don't see any problems in that idea.

You can always suggest well deserving songs in the thread, as long as it's not your own.

I did not know this, but I'll be sure to take advantage of this in the future. We will see if it works ;)

Who chooses who goes on the front anyway?

You can hook up with the flash-authors who comes in here, create threads about how they need an audio artist to work with. it's not all out of your control.

yeah...well that is true I guess. I did say it wasnt all out or our control but the switch ultimately lies in the hand of flash authors. If your style is experimental, hip hop, indie, in general not a style that appeals to the majority of the NG userbase, you probably wont get used in flashes, no matter how good it is. But I have no legitimate reason to complain here. and unfortunately, most of these projects never even get off the ground.

I personally haven't done alot of reviewing since quite some time back. It's possible things have changed, but in many cases the name of the one who review, and his or hers (lol px9) reputation is the key. With the possibility to weigh in on reviews if they're useless/usefull, I think alot of users probably just hit the button instead of responding. I have no hard proof, but that's what I personally do, and I'd guess people are generally like me - lazy.

Personally I dislike the people who don't have the courtesy to respond to reviews. Especially the people who don't respond just out of the sheer fact that they try to look "important". Yeah, I understand if youre PX9 and you get a million thirteen year olds drooling down your back over a sonic remix, and you dont have the time to respond to each and every one of them. But if someone has taken their time to help you and write a long nice review, you should respond back. How long does it take to type "thank you" or "fuck you"? Seriously. That's why I check out the artists nature before I decide to leave a review-I'll check their first couple tracks, if I don't see you responding I'm a lot less likely to take the effort and active listening, repeat through your song multiple times to comment on each section and aspect, then I'm a lot like lessly to review. If you don't appreciate it enough, then why should I bother to take the time? And all I'm asking for is a simple response, not too much too ask. It's not like I'm doing it to whore out my music, expect my e-penis to grow, or recieve prizes or awards or anything along those lines. And these are regarding new authors, so there really is no excuse.

I've read, time and again, the same suggestions about how to improve the voting in the audio portal, or how to "improve things" - none of which seem to be particularly well thought out, whether or not the person who's suggesting them has actually studied the data that's already available to them publicly.

Let's go through a few previous suggestions:

1. Give the audio portal more exposure.

Ok, we tried that - at one point, the audio entries didn't have any placement on the front page of the site. In fact, I'm not even sure that that happened up until the redesign launch, on July 17, 2007.

Even the entries on the front page of the site, audio-wise, don't do so well - the front page of the site gets around a million impressions a day.
I'll give you an example of my own stuff, here - my audio submissions got uploaded in 2005. I was surprised to see that one of my tracks was on the front page and have checked out the stats for it this past couple of days... and the listens have only incremented by around a thousand or so. In two days. Either that's because my stuff is shit, or it's because I have a poor icon for my disk on the front page, but I refuse to believe it's because there aren't enough people casting their eyes over it when on the front page of the site. Check this out:

Only incremented by a thousand or so? Some of my tracks that have been up for a year don't even half that amount of views. You don't find that's enough exposure!? Maybe in comparison to the flashes its not a lot - but yes, the site doesn't revolve around audio.

I for one had my audio once on the front page for two days. It went from 200 listens to 2000, about 15 (I'm guessing) downloads to 100+, from 15 reviews to 32, from 4 people adding it on their favorites to 15. Also had a couple people asking me if they could use it in their flash and even though it hasnt happened yet that would in turn generate even more reviews. That's as good as if not better reaching the Top 5 of the week (except its up on the front for a shorter time). And for that, I am extremely grateful. That's more than "only" IMO!

Not too sure how that ties in with zero voting though - whatever gets recognition gets bombed, and I'm sure most artists would sacrifice their scores if it meant recieving a good influx of popularity.

2. Base scores from reviews.

No. Reviews take up peoples' time - and if they're indecent, it takes more time to get them to the moderators' attention than a countered vote would take in the audio portal from someone who likes your work, as opposed to someone who doesn't. It's rudimentary mathematics.... I'd rather have my score based off of 184 people, than from 13 reviews.

1. Then hire more moderators, have them do their job. I'll take a good site for example. Gamefaqs.com. Their message boards are larger than the NG BBS and probably even the reviews written here combined....well, maybe not combined but I do believe they are the second largest message board on the web. They have stricter rules there too, so that means more moderations and more work. And more complaining for the moderators to hear. But yet, the operations flow very smoothly there. It takes little time to get an offensive message deleted, yet here there are songs stolen that have been up here for TWO YEARS.

People who abuse reviews and mark them as offensive, simply ban them. There should be a few guidelines in writing reviews, maybe back up your points some. If you give a bad score, tell your reasons why. (If the scores good, your not going to have much criticism). This will indeed cause problems at first, an author doesnt think someones score is fair, resulting in even more bitching than there is now. but I do believe less people would take the time to downvote, and if they still do, atleast we would no who the zero bombers are and hunt them down ;) If the zero bomber happens to be abusing his voting zero on everyone's submission but his/her own, then he/she can be condemnded for such actions.

More positive points: you like reviews, well you will get more opinions. People will be more critical on scoring, potentially leave stronger reviews, which in turn would make the community more about helpful rather than be personal stats and placements. That's what I think would happen.

You can also just display the names of current voters. Either I'm on crack but I believe youtube had the feature for a little. Just an experiment, to see how things flow.

Now I know why this would never be possible because it strips the key theme of "vote for what you like" here on NG. I wouldn't want or expect the staff to take such a huge underhall in yet another redesign in the voting system, plus its really not THAT big of a deal. But its just a thought. Indeed a lot of work, but putting a lot of effort into a just system will stem into a better community.

2. Now, please tell me why you would take a partially inaccurate score ranking instead of a more accurate rating which shows why people score the way they do? I don't see why you would want to base your score, off, well an inaccurate score. I believe it's about quality, not quantity.

Too tired to write much more, but I will say this:

1. We've not given up on audio artists. BUT PLEASE stop repeating the same suggestions.

2. The best chance you have of getting publicity on Newgrounds is to get a decent flash artist to use your audio. And of course, we will endeavour to help you all make that happen.

I think there's a rule that prohibits authors from using "famous" (for a lack of a better word) music without their permission. If that rule does exist, then the staff/moderators arent doing a very good job at enforcing it. Again, my apologies if there is no such rule and please correct me if I'm wrong.

There is one suggestion (that would be easy to implement, I assume) that I would like to make that has not been brought up a whole lot, suprisingly.

A few months ago Lashmush suggested that we enable voting to only be allowed once the song has completely played through. why should you be allowed to vote otherwise? That would atleast force the zero bombers to listen through the song before dismissing it. I'll be honest here, when increasing my voting power, I generally don't watch the flashes because I'm just here for audio. So I'll vote 5 on 5 random flashes without usually viewing them. Enabling voting after we watch/listen through a flash or audio would result in a more accurate system, and I see absolutely no harm behind the idea, or why it would be a pain in the ass to implement.

At 6/10/08 09:37 PM, HotActionYiffFur wrote:
Why not make it so a submission may only be voted upon once in its entirety instead of once daily. That prevents both daily personal vote boosting as well as consistent 0 bombers. There will always be the angry kid out there who wants to make an impact on someones life by demeaning their work, but at least this way it's limited to once.

I personally don't think reverting to the previous voting system will solve anything.

Consistent 0 voters will stop eventually, but you and your audio will always be there.

Go ahead and try 5ing your stuff and see if you make the top 30. I GUARANTEE you that your music will not get that far unless if you have a fanbase. solo fiving yourself wont do much alone.

Wow, I really have no life. I could have just said, get some balls, its the internet, serious buisness. TLDR, kudos to anyone who has the patience to read 3000 boring paragraphs written by yours truly. Also, sorry for any grammatical errors made in this entry, I'm sure there's plenty of them.

aye...glad you pointed that out WB, I forgot to mention them. A great crew really that take the time to make NG a better place....

Relevant discussion that was cut to save the character limit

Well, the way I see it, these people are critics of a profession they're not experienced in. Now, analogy time, movie critics, anyone can criticise a movie, provided that they have the english skills enough to formulate a review. They don't have to make movies to do it, but the opinions of professional critics are still highly relevant, because they represent the majority of opinions of the mass media. With newgrounds audio, the review request club generally say whether they like or don't like it, and try to justify why. No, they're not musically trained, but their opinions are still highly relevant in terms of what the general newgrounds user will think of your music. And for that, I've found the RRC very helpful.

I dont think Rucklo included this in his places to advertise music...but I think Nav started a topic a while back for WIPs. It was rolling strong from what I can remember, but it died out. I'll try to find it and bump it.

Is it on rig's list?

At 6/10/08 08:00 PM, Rucklo wrote:
- AP=FP etc...

Voting power

If you really want to be picky, then maybe the audio protal voting system should have a separate batting average, so that the audio votes hold to their own, and the flashes don't play a part. The problem in this would be that I imagine it would be difficult to change from the way things are. Voting power integrated with audio portal votes wouldn't be too bad. My voting power probably would be a lot higher because I vote a hell of a lot more on audio than I do on flash, but then again, the AP is part of the minority. What's liljim's thoughts on playing around with the voting system? I doubt it would fix 0-bombing, but it would probably add an incentive to voting on audio (don't have to vote on flash to deposit or could have double deposits?). Whatever the change, it'd have to be something that would have a worthwhile effect, something that NG can commit to.

And I don't see any problem with letting our reviews have some influence on our voting power percentage. If we leave a review, and back up WHY we voted what we did, wouldnt that give us more credibility as voters? Plus it might encourage more people to review- a lot more short reviews I'd expect, you can take that as a bad thing or good thing. But I do believe it would aid in helping the zero voting problem.

Maybe like the blam/protect boost for flash? The problem with that, as you've already mentioned somewhere, is that the amount of one liner reviews would probably go up, just for the stats.

I intentionally am attempting to kill the whole 0-voting discussion, because it leads nowhere, like i mentioned the admins are most likley aware of things and what really annoys me, is (like previously menitoned) the fact that the threads steal spotlight from other threads.

Eej, I gotcha.

It's all about attention, creating a thread is another way to get more attention, the audio forum is supposed to be about the community (well, it seems that way to me...)

Then maybe somone would like to re-animate it? It's a good thread, and a good concept.

Sure, I'll bump it. It is indeed a good concept, but negative nancy says it will just die again. I'll try to rack up names of some artists who havent been mentioned yet and post them in there. Oh, and I nominate fatkidwithajetpack.

It's a shame that the thread got derailed with all that attention whoring spam.

Pffft, speak for yourself! I've found shitload of awesome music in there that I never would have found othervice, and I still check the thread regularly.

Yeah me too....and people like you are far and few between...but what I'm talking about here is REVIEWS. You know, the helpful words. I once checked the topic, looked at the last 50 submissions advertised in there, and ONE, only two percent of the advertisers was kind enough to review the following submission. wtf is up with that. I can guarantee you right now the thread is following a similar pattern. So in the instance of review recieved ratios, that thread is almost useless.

I used to advertise there but it was full of self centred-ness. I didn't really get the critical reviews I was looking for.

I suggested a while back to start a new advertisement thread but you said there was no need. Put out your music, review the two people above (or maybe make it one if thats too much), and this time strictly enforce, possibly delete, maybe ban them from the thread, or simply tell a user to follow the rules if they decide to be selfish about, advertise their own stuff expecting to recieve a review, yet not giving out any reviews of their own. ( There's what, 15 audio moderators? and it wouldnt need to be just a mod's job to try and enforce the rules, any user could do it) If they dont want to review other people, they can simply then use the other, original, cluttered thread. Now I understand how some of the reprimandation options wouldn't be possible under the current BBS system, but its still worth a shot.
Now I may be missing a key point in action here, but I don't see any problems in that idea.

I think that it wouldn't be a bad idea, but it'd need full commitment, no half-assing around. Get the ground rules laid down in the first post and stick to them. I'm pretty sure BBS/audio mods/audio regs could handle it.

You can always suggest well deserving songs in the thread, as long as it's not your own.

I did not know this, but I'll be sure to take advantage of this in the future. We will see if it works ;)

I think it was just a new thing that Rucklo decided upon.

Who chooses who goes on the front anyway?

Rucklo does. =D

You can hook up with the flash-authors who comes in here, create threads about how they need an audio artist to work with. it's not all out of your control.

Minority genres and uncomitted flash artists.

It's about wisely picking out the most reliable guy looking for a job, and being flexible enough to give him the right music. I've helped out a few flash authors, and they've given me some great opportunities, I don't think this is a bad attention seeking plan at all, and after all, this is Newgrounds, an animation site.

I don't review much anymore.

Responding to reviews.

I don't write too many reviews, I guess in that aspect, I'm like you, S3C, I generally only review if I know that my opinion will count. If a song has more than a few reviews, I won't bother, I might leave a comment on their blog, but not as a review. If a song is by an audio reg, I might put a biassed review in, I'll occasionally write a critical review for a song advertised in the review request club, or if I see a song that could use a review, and the user isn't a jackass, I'll leave a review. Most of the time I'll get a response. I guess it all comes down to who you're reviewing, and how you go about writing that review, some people don't care, some people hate constructive criticism, and some people have way too much reviews to respond to. I'm pretty sure that all reviews on my songs have been responded to, as with quite a few other users, responses don't really have much of an effect on the music, but I guess it decides the temperament of the musician. People like a friendly musician over an arrogant ass, any day. I think that's usually why the popular musicians are pretty well known in the audio forum, and are not just a user no-one knows anything about.
I'd like to see more discussion on a new audio advertisments thread. Maybe each week an audio reg could update a list of all requests that have less than a certain number of reviews, so that if people want to be noticed on the list, and to keep the list smaller, they'd have to review older requests otherwise it'd pile up and no-one would get reviews. That has the potential to go very wrong, but it's an idea. Just an idea...

READ: "A Fear of Great Heights" and other forthcoming adventures right HERE
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First off I would like to say this is a great thread. It has been much needed. Also I seen the numerous 0-bombing threads that were posted some few hours ago, and I was annoyed myself.

Next There really is no problem with the audio portal system. The fact is not as many people go to the audio portal as they do the flash portal. So you notice when some one votes a zero. Tho in due time I promise the score will even its self out.

Also Becoming known in the portal WILL help. How do you become known? simple, by reviewing and talking with other artists. Make some E-friends and callab a little. Post in places like the audio ad thread and the review request thread (really does work, them guys are great).

Now I am really just repeating what others have said. But for you people who insist that what they said does not work I am hear to say as a audio artist it does.

Ok, we tried that - at one point, the audio entries didn't have any placement on the front page of the site. In fact, I'm not even sure that that happened up until the redesign launch, on July 17, 2007.

Even the entries on the front page of the site, audio-wise, don't do so well - the front page of the site gets around a million impressions a day.
I'll give you an example of my own stuff, here - my audio submissions got uploaded in 2005. I was surprised to see that one of my tracks was on the front page and have checked out the stats for it this past couple of days... and the listens have only incremented by around a thousand or so. In two days. Either that's because my stuff is shit, or it's because I have a poor icon for my disk on the front page, but I refuse to believe it's because there aren't enough people casting their eyes over it when on the front page of the site. Check this out:

http://rubberninja.newgrounds.com/news/p ost/135380

That has more comments (37, at time of writing, than my track, which is above it in the front page, with an icon, etc, and there's 13 reviews there).

Here are the stats for the track of mine that's on the front page at the time of writing this:

184 votes
2,995 listens
244 downloads
13 reviews

Here's what I think is holding the frontpage-submissions back: lack of information.
- Include the users name, which normally is the users artist-name as well. I think that alone could attract alot more listeneres.

Also, your song, Patchwork Sky don't get alot of attention, this "round", nor does three other songs mainly because there is one song that "outclass" the rest, called The Bukkake Udon Song.
They had very few listens, views and reviews before they got frontpage. And now they've been up on the frontpage since 6'th june, five days as I'm writing this. So from nothing they now got:

534 votes
6,718 listens
456 downloads
85 reviews

This is definitley because of the frontpage, and they most likley "steal" attention from the other songs because of the title.
It is alot less than a flash would get, of course, but the amount of reviews is way more than your and the other songs on the frontpage.
I've seen this happen time and time again when there's something with a "catchy" title, or somone known adding their artist-name in the title. I belive alot of viewers only click one or two songs. If they don't like the genre that is being exposed, they won't click at all. Song title means alot.

So, like mentioned:
- Just as title and genre is being showcased, the artists name should be included.

At 6/11/08 03:17 AM, Suspended-3rd-Chord wrote:
Only incremented by a thousand or so? Some of my tracks that have been up for a year don't even half that amount of views. You don't find that's enough exposure!?

No. But it doesn't matter to me, given that the audio I have here was recorded years and years ago.

1. Then hire more moderators, have them do their job. I'll take a good site for example. Gamefaqs.com. Their message boards are larger than the NG BBS and probably even the reviews written here combined....well, maybe not combined but I do believe they are the second largest message board on the web. They have stricter rules there too, so that means more moderations and more work. And more complaining for the moderators to hear. But yet, the operations flow very smoothly there. It takes little time to get an offensive message deleted, yet here there are songs stolen that have been up here for TWO YEARS.

Do I really have to insult your intelligence by telling you that games reviewed there are:

a) well known, given that they all (with the exception of some market place games) tend to have million dollar budgets, so of COURSE they're going to get lots of reviews, juxtaposed to
b) relatively unknown audio artists, who're just trying to get some exposure

People who abuse reviews and mark them as offensive, simply ban them.

That is a wonderful idea. But, that is already the procedure.

There should be a few guidelines in writing reviews, maybe back up your points some. If you give a bad score, tell your reasons why.

At 6/10/08 08:58 PM, HotActionYiffFur wrote:
Great thread, it is very annoying to see users so agitated because their scores drop a significant amount in a short period of time.

Well, you have to realize that if someone is new and got 0 bombed, it will hurt, although I used to get 0 bombed like clock work, I was hurt, but I eventually got over it, mainly because I'm not too much of a stat whore and if there are jealous bastards then, let them be jealous, makes me feel better about myself.

A lot of the time it's jealousy as well, for people mass vote their own and 0 bomb everything else below and above it to come out on top. I think having stats on a competitive site such as this wasn't a good idea.

But it builds a stable community amongst those who aren't total jealous kids. There will always be noobs to pull down the party, just ignore them.

At 6/11/08 02:35 AM, Suspended-3rd-Chord wrote:

At 6/10/08 08:47 PM, WritersBlock wrote:
I'll add in another link you can use to gain more exposure;
Review Request Club
If you follow their rules, and make a request for your music, then you'll usually get at least half a dozen reviews from the club members, and more often than not,

aye...glad you pointed that out WB, I forgot to mention them. A great crew really that take the time to make NG a better place....

BUT....I'm going to be an asshole. And I apologize for being an asshole. Foremost I (as everyone should) appreciate anybody that ...and so on...

At 6/11/08 07:04 AM, liljim wrote:
No. But it doesn't matter to me, given that the audio I have here was recorded years and years ago.

Maybe its not a lot for an admin or well known member on the site- but I'm sure it would mean a great deal for people who go unnoticed.

Do I really have to insult your intelligence by telling you that games reviewed there are:

a) well known, given that they all (with the exception of some market place games) tend to have million dollar budgets, so of COURSE they're going to get lots of reviews, juxtaposed to
b) relatively unknown audio artists, who're just trying to get some exposure

I think you're missing the point. Maybe I could have been more clear. I wasn't making a comparison based on the amount of reviews the games get on Gamefaqs versus the amount of reviews audio artists receive here. No, not at all. I'm not that stupid. You stated a problem on how much work it would be for the mods if we based the scoring system on reviews - and I was drawing a light to how a large message board with marked messages operates smoothly, and even if we had more marked reviews hear the system could still work if we put in more effort. Again, just pointing out a successful large system that is able to contain order, and that NG could do that too. What I said had absolutely nothing to do with recognition and review comparison.

That is a wonderful idea. But, that is already the procedure.

sure thing. I was just re-stating that solution in case someone happens to point out that people might abuse the system.

Another scorcher. Wait, what. Again, those guidelines already exist.

Of course. But I'm not too sure of the exact rules. IF this system was to work that I described above, then there good be more stricter guidelines- maybe a minimum of 300 chars in a review (too much?), emphasize that a reviewer must tell why he/she dislikes or likes certain aspects. That's all I was trying to get at.

Of course, most of wht I said is completely hypothetical. I already gave an explanation to why I know this isnt possible, I'm not trying to be ignorant. More importantly , what do you think of Lashmush's idea? I think its a very viable and fair option to not allow voting until the song ends, or the flash is finished playing. Would that be difficult to program?

I think it'll take a lot more discussion between af users and admins, before problems get sovled, but the communication is happening, so that is good.

Why yes, yes it is. and I'm glad that discussion is being made and the staff is listening, so thanks liljim and rucklo.

I also like your idea about the new advertisement thread. It sounds more organized than what I originally had posed. But I did kinda of forget the amount of commitment it would take might be unrealistic, and the problems that could arise from it. Maybe it is just better to just stick with the main thread, but it never hurts to try.

Does anyone have a good argument against forcing users to review, with a minimum char count, in order to give a score? Maybe also have a separate AP voting power - and you can only get experience by reviewing audio in the AP. If a review is useless and is just for experience, it can be flagged and the reviewer can be banned after repeated infractions. I see no flaw.

what I want to know liljim, is now that you have had your stuff on the front page, and are not pleased with the results - what can YOU think of to improve it? We can argue about suggestions until we are blue in the face - but the same things just get argued over and over and over.. The audio portal is YOUR brainchild - help us out! :)

At 6/11/08 08:44 AM, endlessnumber wrote:
Does anyone have a good argument against forcing users to review, with a minimum char count, in order to give a score? Maybe also have a separate AP voting power - and you can only get experience by reviewing audio in the AP. If a review is useless and is just for experience, it can be flagged and the reviewer can be banned after repeated infractions. I see no flaw.

The great thing about newgrounds is that the boundaries on freedom of speech is relatively small. Providing that you're not out to abuse other members, you're free to say as much or as little as you want. Putting restrictions, such as a character limit will force people of little musical intellect to come up with a paragraph of drivel, reiterating the statement they only wanted to make; "I liked your song". Some people review songs to show support, and although it may only be one line, they still have the right to show support even though they can't form constructive criticism. Freedom of speech is definitely a positive thing in this case.
I've already mentioned my thoughts on the AP voting power, I think, and although it might work really well for regular voters and encourage more people to vote, it seems to me like the NG staff have commited to the current voting system, and some small tweaks wouldn't be unlikely, this seems like a huge backpedal on the way things are to change the system. I think it'd be easier and probably just as rewarding to make the votes of the audio portal count towards the grounds gold deposits. And the review for experience, that's already been covered too, I think. The effort required to review is much more than to vote. You'd probably end up with stat whores or a group of elitists that can dominate over the AP.
I see lots of flaws in these ideas. But the more ideas we go through, the closer we get to the solution.

READ: "A Fear of Great Heights" and other forthcoming adventures right HERE
Signature Picture by: Spartan204

At 6/11/08 08:44 AM, endlessnumber wrote:
Does anyone have a good argument... against forcing users to review, with a minimum char count, in order to give a score? Maybe also have a separate AP voting power - and you can only get experience by reviewing audio in the AP. If a review is useless and is just for experience, it can be flagged and the reviewer can be banned after repeated infractions. I see no flaw.

Right off the top of my head...

Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V

I suspect that you'll still get plenty of zeroes, the only difference will be that an alt account will be created and four paragraphs of crap will fill up your precious review space.

You'll get a lot of the following reviews:"hahahahaloooser" SCORE 0
by: myZeroBombAlt
date: June 8, 2008

"blah balh bahla balha bah you suck suck suck you csuck I can copy paste to meet a minimum char count and keep it in a text file on my desktop loooser blah balh bahla balha bah you suck suck suck you csuck I can copy paste to meet a minimum char count and keep it in a text file on my desktop loooser blah balh bahla balha bah you suck suck suck you csuck I can copy paste to meet a minimum char count and keep it in a text file on my desktop loooser blah balh bahla balha bah you suck suck suck you csuck I can copy paste to meet a minimum char count and keep it in a text file on my desktop loooser"
...

Your suggestion won't make it any more difficult for negative reviews or scores - it will only act as a deterrent for people who otherwise may like your track but not enough to craft a well thought out review simply for the right of voting... they just won't vote. (no 0's or 1's also means no 4's or 5's)

The people who want to get moar experience will just copy and paste the above useless review into a thousand peoples tracks... They'll get experience... and the guy that "sort-of liked" your song (but not enough to be bothered to review it) will not...

Wait wait WAIT! you say... but people that part where it says "If a review is useless and is just for experience, it can be flagged and the reviewer can be banned after repeated infractions."

A zero-voter can also copy and paste a seemingly well thought out but very generic review in order to meet a minimum character count and still manage to slink past peoples "Crap Review-O-Meter" not to mention the increase in work load for people that volunteer their personal time to moderate things like that. Honestly, it sounds like much more of a pain in the ass then it's worth.

So then - a quick recap... More effort for high voters, much more effort for the review mods, only slightly more effort for low voters.

Like I said though, this is just off the top of my head... I'm sure that if I gave it some real thought I'd really understand and support your suggestion. heh...

At 6/11/08 09:59 AM, endlessnumber wrote:
Amend my solution with the execution of all idiots on Newgrounds as well.

Now that might work but I'm afraid I'd be too close to the front of the line.

----------------------------

A few useless words for new(ish) users that are wondering why a score dropped from a 4.whatever to below a 2:

Fact: Everyone that gets any votes at all, gets zero-voted on.

Just think of it as an Audio Portal right of passage. If you haven't been zero-bombed then you can't call yourself a part of this dysfunctional little community.

As long as there's a steady supply of new users, there will be mistakes made in all areas - and as long as there are users at all, there will be a few assholes that think it's funny to do little things that make others upset.

Another thing that happens, I believe, more often than not is that people aren't necessarily voting 0 - they may be voting 1 or 2 but anytime anyone's score drops more than .02 points they cry "ZERO-VOTER!!"

Another possibility for steadily dropping scores is that your "music" might suck a lot more than you are capable of accepting at this point in your "career". There's definitely one user who shall not be named that recently made a "Deys all came an Z3r0 B0mbed mah lifes Wurk" topic who sucks... I read his topic, checked his page and honestly, his scores were right about where I think they should be - somewhere in the 2's... Low? Yes, but what do you expect when you post generic uninspired 20 second loops that sound like they were mastered on wax?

They vote 5 on their own crap, and then they wonder why their scores are going down faster than a BrownsVille tween at a Stryper concert.